Check out the preservation projects currently ongoing at St. Bart's.
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Well into the 1960s, St. Bart’s was one of the three or four largest congregations in the Episcopal Church. As its immediate neighborhood changed from primarily residential to corporate and commercial, the parish ministry increasingly reached out to the community and non-members. The music ministry included more public concerts, and St. Bartholomew’s took the lead in midtown in beginning a substantial ministry to the poor.
In 1981 a real estate developer offered a plan to build an office tower on the site of the adjacent community house, ensuring a financial endowment of the church's mission and maintenance. Conflict developed within the parish and between the church and the city over the designated landmark status of the building. In the ensuing years of battle, St. Bart’s became synonymous with the very real issues between the religious community and the historic preservation movement, and with the attendant constitutional questions. The case tortuously worked its way, over eleven years, to the Supreme Court, which in 1991 declined to hear St. Bartholomew’s appeal of the Second Circuit decision. The congregation paid a heavy price for the battle. Half the membership left, and charity and relationships were strained. The existing financial problems deepened. Maintenance on the building was deferred.
In the calling of a new rector in 1994, church leadership made a commitment to growing St. Bartholomew’s as a congregation and in restoring and preserving its landmark building. Because of this, attendance and membership have grown. We have affirmed the sacred function of the space and the mission of the church.
We are ministering to those less fortunate by operating a homeless shelter every night of the year, a soup kitchen serving hundreds four times each week, and a food pantry. A Café (on our outdoor terrace in warm weather, inside the community house in winter) offers daily food and hospitality. An innovative interfaith education program, the Center for Religious Inquiry, led by a resident rabbi, offers courses and lectures in the world’s living religions. We offer a strong and growing children’s and family ministry and substantial adult education.
At the heart of all we do is powerful worship and superb music. St. Bart’s is determined to be a “church for these times”—a place strong enough to weather a recession and creative enough to be a thinking person’s church, faithful to the Christian tradition in the very heart of New York.
